Analysis of costs caused by EPA regulation

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed onerous new limits carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. The standards would prevent construction of new facilities, gradually close older ones and eventually affect even gas-fired units, says Paul Driessen, senior policy adviser for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

EPA says the rules will safeguard our health and welfare from storms, sea level rise and other ravages of man-made climate change. They are in addition to 1,900 other Obama-era regulations designed to curtail or terminate coal mining and use — and dictate activities affecting air and emissions, land and soils, waterways and puddles.

They point to solar, cosmic, oceanic and other factors the agency ignores; and note that higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) spur plant growth and green our planet.

They point out that humans contribute only 4 percent of the CO2 that enters the atmosphere each year, and U.S. coal-based power generation is responsible for only 3 percent of worldwide human CO2 emissions.

In other words, the power plants EPA wants to shut down account for a trivial 0.01 percent of the carbon dioxide added to Earth’s atmosphere annually, raising CO2 levels to about 0.04 percent of the atmosphere.

Legislators and regulators justify the rules with assertions that they control miscreants and bring vast benefits to the citizenry. All too often, however, the benefits exist only in their minds, computer models and press releases.

Worse, this is barely the tip of the iceberg. This legal and regulatory behemoth, our crushing $17 trillion national debt and massive unfunded entitlements mean fewer jobs, more layoffs and steadily declining quality of life for tens of millions of Americans. They cannot heat and cool their homes properly, pay rent, mortgage or other bills, take vacations, or save for college and retirement.